An Incomplete Conclusion (Warriors 107, Suns 92)

The Warriors will enter the regular season burdened with the same questions they carried into the preseason: whether Stephen Curry and Andrew Bogut will be healthy, and whether Mark Jackson is the right person to coach the team. If the team learned anything during the preseason, it was simply the central importance of those questions. The offense sputtered without Curry. The defense is still full of holes in anticipation of Bogut’s arrival. With Jackson, there is no new focus or twist to the team’s game-plan immediately apparent on either end. Although the 2012-13 Warriors have the potential to be a playoff team, we’re no closer to knowing how well they’ll realize that potential than we were a month ago.

The Warriors’ final preseason game — a relatively perfunctory 107-92 win over the rebuilding Phoenix Suns — wasn’t a bad outing. It just wasn’t a particularly satisfying one. There were bright spots — Harrison Barnes, Jarrett Jack and Charles Jenkins, in particular — but there were more questions than answers. Will the offensive flow improve at all when Curry returns? Or will the only consistent high-percentage shots the team manages to create be the occasional look for Klay Thompson off a screen? Will Bogut really cure all of the Warriors’ interior defensive ills? Or will Lee’s matador effort just frustrate Bogut and land him in foul trouble? These are the type of big-picture identity issues you like to sort out in preseason. With the exception of some carefully monitored minutes for Curry, the Warriors didn’t have that luxury. It’s no one’s fault — just an unfortunate reality of having key pieces with faulty parts.

Despite the injuries, preseason still presented an opportunity to warm up the rookies and adapt the team’s plans to its new pieces. It succeeded on the first count and made some progress on the second.

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Barnes, Ezeli and Green all saw extended playing time during October. Barnes had ups and downs but showed enough flashes of potential to sustain optimism. Ezeli made an initial splash — partially benefiting from lowered expectations — and continues to adapt to the NBA game. Green got a late start due to injury and probably needed the time most to carve out a niche, but may have shown enough to stick around on the regular roster. As a 3, Green strikes me as too slow and too limited offensively to compete. But as an undersized 4, his hustle and willingness to mix it up could still earn him a place in the league. Time will tell for all the Warriors’ rookies, but at least they got ample opportunities in the past month to jump-start their maturation.

The biggest veteran additions to the Warriors — Jarrett Jack and Carl Landry — both logged major minutes for their new team (particularly given injuries), but only in the final few preseason games did the team appear to start running plays to their strengths. Jack is an excellent mid-range shooter when he can get into the lane. He’s looked for those opportunities in transition from day 1, but against Phoenix he finally found a few off passes in offensive sets. Landry similarly enters his comfort zone in the key. After feeding him deep on the perimeter to start the preseason, the team appears to be making an effort to get him the ball in deeper position where he’s much more effective. These are relatively minor tweaks in a perfect world, but if Curry and/or Bogut start missing regular season games, Jack and Landry become very important pieces. It’s encouraging to see the team at least show hints of trying to play to their strengths.

When the games start counting on October 31, all the preseason minutes logged by the rookies and the new vets should mean something. But in the complex stew that forms a successful basketball team, the Warriors still have yet to mix in their two most potent ingredients. More refinement and adaptation will be inevitable once Curry and Bogut return — it’ll just occur in much less forgiving circumstances.

A few brief notes on individual performances against Phoenix:

Klay Thompson spends way too much time just standing on the perimeter, apparently by design in many of the Warriors sets. He’s deadly off the pick, but the Warriors only appear to have 2 or 3 scripted plays designed to get him those shots. And they rarely call them. Thompson would also benefit from some sets that allow him to attack the basket, further opening up his game, but I can’t remember a decisive drive since the preseason opener against the Lakers. He’s going to be really good, but he’s still a work in progress in a system doing him no big favors.

David Lee had a particularly abysmal defensive night against Luis Scola. He spent a lot of time covering whatever the nearest body was rather than sticking with his man. When he was isolated on Scola, he was blown by a few times and gave up fouls on the others. The Warriors finally started bringing Barnes down as a double-team to compensate, but that created other defensive gaps. I have a lot of faith in Andrew Bogut as a defender, but I doubt even he will be able to cover for Lee on nights like this one.

Harrison Barnes may have had his best all-around game as a pro. He hit shots from inside and out, crashed the boards, moved the ball and worked on defense. It was a powerful argument for the starting job, particularly on a night when Rush struggled. The choice is largely academic, since both will see major minutes, but it was encouraging to see Barnes step up in a statement opportunity.

Festus Ezeli looks a little less active than he did earlier in the preseason. I’m not sure if the early wear and tear of NBA life is slowing him down or if he’s tweaking his game a bit, but we haven’t seen the aggressive shot blocking Ezeli much in the last week. With Bogut out for now, it would be a huge boost for the team if he could fill that role.

Charles Jenkins had a few ugly turnovers, but otherwise played an impressively aggressive game. He broke ankles (too soon?) multiple times — something I never would have dreamed of him doing last year, when he appeared to struggle with his handle even in halfcourt pressure. His mid-range jumper still rattles home and he’s a decently physical defender. My darkhorse for the Warrior that demands minutes with his play, depth chart be damned.

One Warrior who will not be hard to sit is Jeremy Tyler, who faded into the background even on the court during the final garbage minutes with a bunch of guys unlikely to be in the league next week. He needs a lot more seasoning in Santa Cruz before he’s ready to be considered for the rotation, but I can’t shake the feeling that the shortcoming is one fire rather than skill.

I haven’t seen enough Draymond Green yet to form solid conclusions, but I’m initially both worried and intrigued. I’m worried because he was overmatched defensively when slotted into the 3 briefly in the second half and he doesn’t have a jump shot right now to save his life. I’m intrigued because he does show excellent rebounding instinct, solid defensive judgment and a grittiness that the team desperately needs. The key will be finding him match-ups at the 4 where his size and speed won’t be too large a liability. For a bench player, that’s not too tall an order, so long as Jackson is adaptive in how he gets worked into games.

At the close of preseason, we’re now all well-acquainted with the questions surrounding this team. I’m looking forward to some answers starting October 31st.

Adam Lauridsen

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I just like the idea of seeing how Lin and Harden play together, I had the pleasure to watch Lin play all his games last year, it was fun, Harden is a good player. You not “being scared” I am sure you are just making a pun in relation to halloween. Boo, I knew my comment wouldn’t scare you cuz you are no chump.

Now that’s the definition of YOUNG. But I like it. Hope it energizes McHale.

bryhsiao

Congrats to Giants, world champions.

Now Warriors need to bring one back!!

http://Yahoo! PeteyBrian

@Sartre

You don’t see the possibility of the Lakers winning it all? Granted, the Miami Heat have improved.

Once the grind of the regular season begins and the half court playoffs start – should all the Lakers starters be relatively healthy – I’d say the Lakers are THE favorites in the West. And no one hates the Lakers more than me…

This is even before OKC couldn’t re-sign Harden and had to dump him for assets.

Dwight Howard being a beast down low. Pau Gasol passing out of the high post. Steve Nash assists and shooting in the mid-40% range from 3 point land. Kobe scoring efficiently on the wing. Metta World doing the dirty work.

Steve Nash is much, much better than Steve Blake and Dwight Howard is better than Bynum. Chemistry? They have all season to gel. Pre-season losses? Meaningless.

But Mitch Kupcake won’t stand pat with that bench for long… Plus, we all KNOW that really good veterans (waived, unsigned, bought out, amnestied, trade demand) will soon want to play in LA for the Lakers for less or the league minimum to collect playoff checks with huge potential for a ring. Like the Heat bench now…

El Topo

What’s all this carping about Bogut?

I’ve been a W’s fan since 1981, when the C was Joe Barely Cares, to the Centers we used last season: Biedrins, Gladness, Kwame, Tyler, Mikke, et al.

Get some perspective, folks: a healthy Bogut is, by far, the best C the W’s have had the last 30 years.

Arriba los Gigantes!

El Topo

Damn MLB greed for playing night games at end of October in cold weather places like Detroit.

sartre

PeteyB, you may be right. I just think that there are real challenges to making the experiment work – the lack of a bench, learning to play with each other, and trying to fit together in a way that maximizes team performance.

Two pre-seasons ago Nash had 14.9 assists per 48 minutes playing with the less top-end talented Suns. This year he had 9.2. For comparison, Paul had 15.2, Curry 13.3, Rondo 13.2, Westbrook 12.8, Holliday 11.9, and Jack 11.8. Maybe this is a meaningless product of a small sample size but it is worth keeping an eye on whether Nash can be at his best playing alongside the ball dominant Kobe. Nash may end up playing Curry to Kobe’s Monta

I love being a SF Giants fan!

rigged

Sam Presti really knows how to acknowledge his players worth not only in dollar value but also in the total sum as a team. Even though Harden plays a much better team concept and plays a much better D than Kevin Martin, Sam did what’s best for the franchise both near and in the long run.

Good move for Sam Presti. He didn’t buckle down on the pressure of keeping his team intact. James Harden is clearly over his head with his dollar demand.

I wonder what’s going on with our Stephen Currys contract extension. Two days left and both camps are all quiet. I could understand the business.

If I’m Bob Myers, I’d rather have SCurry play out this season and see what the issues will bring about.

Tired

Harden just made himself an albatross for the next few years. Max for Harden? Dream on fools. OKC did the right thing, although probably not for the reasons I would say.